Do You Wish to be Healed?

Homily for Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

As is so often the case with stories from the Gospel of St. John, this healing miracle does not appear in any of the synoptic Gospels. Whereas those Gospels tell us stories of many healings, St. John’s Gospel has only four healing miracles. This is the second of those miracles.

The Hebrew word “Bethesda” means “house of mercy” or “house of grace.” The pool was so named because there were many invalids lying in the five porticos or porches that surrounded it. Such a large group of ill people would have made it a place that most people would have avoided. The Gospel tells us that Jesus approached a man who had been lying there for thirty-eight years. In most of the stories of healings and cures, the sick person usually approaches Jesus. However, St. John tells us that in this case it was Jesus who did the approaching. Then Jesus asks a question, “Do you want to be healed?” After the man explains his problem, Jesus simply tells him to rise, to pick up his mat, and to return to his home. Whereas many of the healing miracles involved Jesus touching the person needing his miraculous power, this healing seems to have been done simply through his words.

Because it is paired up with a reading from the end of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, it seems to be evoking images of the Sacrament of Baptism. Each of the sacraments of the Church involves a physical reality as well as spoken words. You might say that the sacraments bring together outward signs and the words of Jesus as a way to experience the grace of God. Both parts are necessary. Though Jesus does not help the man into the pool, the fact that the healing takes place near the pool is a key factor. Jesus approaches the man because he is lying near this pool.

As we celebrate the Eucharist today, the sacrament which is the source of grace for all the other sacraments, we recognize both the bread and wine as well as the words of the presider as its component parts. The Eucharist is both a source of healing as well as a source of grace. The question that Jesus asks of the man is also posed for us today. “Do we want to be healed” by this sacrament of reconciliation?